Pier 101 — Restaurant in Lincoln City

I really wanted it to be better. The photos looked good, and I thought maybe the bad google score was just from the impatient people or nights w bad service or understaffing. I hoped that the complaints about the crab were just picky people. I should have trusted google.

The penne pasta was meh at best. Edible, but I would have preferred jarred pasta sauce at home.

The fresh baked bread was low quality. Olive Garden has it beat, and that’s not saying much.

The butter… Lordamighty…. TRUST THE REVIEWS ON THE BUTTER. It’s some weird, white (literal color is white - I had to turn on my phone light to check it and make sure I wasn’t just being tricked by the indoor lights), whipped butter… it was completely flavorless. Some kind of canola whipped margarine “butter,” that tasted like it had been from the original barrel that they bought in 1970.

The butter for the crab and clams seemed to be the same, but melted. Just flavorless oil with some nuance of butter that was more like a La Croix fruit fart than actual butter.

The steamer clams were ok. Butter for that, also fail. The clams at least had flavor; seemed like they were steamed in Au Jus from some other dish. If you’re not a meat eater, you might want to check first whether this is ok for you to eat. The clams at least tasted good (if we skipped the butter).

My whole crab… god. $48, “market price” in April. Yuck. So I am that person who can absolutely annihilate 2-3 whole crabs. Favorite food. This crab was not kept alive too long and stringy (if you keep them in a tank they stop eating and essentially eat themselves alive from the inside out). This was frozen. However, somewhere in the freezing or thawing and/or cooking process, it went wrong. It was squishy, soft, flavorless. Any umami that crab once had was just a long lost dream at this point. I don’t think they even reheated the cold crab in salted water, because even that alone would have helped so much. I couldn’t even dip it in butter to save it. It made the squishy mess taste even worse. The only saving grace was lemon. The lemon might have been the only real/honest ingredient on the table.

Like pizza and sex, even mediocre crab is good crab to me. But this would be one that even I would take a hard pass on. Especially for $48. The broccoli it came with was ok, and the garlic mashed potatoes were also bland and rather than creamy, were sticky.

Honestly it seems like their biggest problem here is the quality of ingredients being used. The techniques weren’t great but good technique with bad ingredients means the food is bad no matter what you do to save it.

Someone tell this restaurant owner to toss that 1970’s barrel of margarine out and use real butter, at least. Even that would have recovered a lot of what was wrong with the food.

The servers were friendly, attentive, and sat us quickly.

The reviews were right about the tables and bathroom floors. Sticky. I’m just glad I am so short that I didn’t have to touch...

Upon entering the restaurant swarms of flies presented themselves as friendly regulars. We were sat at a booth at the far side of the restaurant in front of a window. The waiter promptly took our drink order. Immediately speaking harshly to the gentleman in the neighboring booth who had inquired about his shrimp salad being absent shrimp. The waiter rudely says "You didn't tell me you wanted shrimp, I can add it for an extra charge." The gentleman nicely asked for shrimp a second time. To which the waiter says "fine, you'll see the extra charge." He left the dining room and returned with the requested shrimp and the drinks, he then took our food order. Returning about 5 minutes later with a rather obvious size difference in the wilted Cesar Salads. There was a fruit fly mixed into the Honey Butter, and the Sourdough bread was three ways from wrong! It tasted like the starter had gone bad. Then our plates arrive. My sister's was a bit heavy on the pesto, but overall not terrible. However... my sauteed shrimp was not sauteed and served in a sauce, it was boiled and served in a soup, the broccoli was MOLDED, and the rice pilaf was the worst thing I have ever tasted in my life. The waiter NEVER came to check on us. Never brought or offered water. Instead comes and tries to give us the bill. I abruptly went into telling him what was wrong with plate. He said "You need to speak to the manager", did an about face and disappeared. I was so put off that I told my sister to go start the car and to take her money off the table. I was pissed. But then this older woman emerges, and says " I think I'm supposed to speak to you". Disarming me rather slightly. I proceeded to nicely explain what was wrong with this picture. Just when I thought she was going to pick up my plate, she dug her fingers into my rice and put what she had retrieved into her mouth and began chewing! In utter amazement, we sat there with a brief loss of words as we watched this poor woman try to chew this gross rice! Her chewing slowed, and her face went blank and she says "oh that's bad, that's dry, I will have this removed from your bill". Still baffled that this woman just dug her fingers into my plate, I was still at a loss for words. Then she kindly asks if we would like a complimentary dessert. To which the mortified sister of mine quickly replies "no thank you". As the woman is walking away from the table she spits the mouthful of rice back into the plates. She comes back with the checks and asks if there is anything else she can help us with at which time my sister says "you may wanna try that bread, something is seriously wrong with it", to which the lady replies "I'm gonna be full by the time...

We went in this evening expecting the food and service we have received in the past. Joke was on us! First off they seated us after making us wait due to being half full. Ok no biggie, out of season, maybe not as much staff. The table was sticky and felt dirty. It was 25-30 min before our waitress even came to our table to offer us drinks. She seemed overly pleasant so we shrugged it off. We got our drinks and she dashed away. We kept looking around and even put our menus down to show we were ready to order. A good 10 min went by and the table behind us was seated. Here came our waitress, ready to get them drinks. I had to stop her to ask a question about the prime rib and to place our order. Brought our salads and some bread and then NOTHING! It seemed everyone else in the restaurant received their food and we did not. Like they forgot to place the order. Finally she comes out with what they call prime rib and my husband’s snow crab. I ordered my prime rib medium and it was raw, like still mooing! My husband’s snow crab was so overly cooked that it was rubbery and most of the meat wasn’t there. I waited another 5-10 min for my waitress to ask her about my steak and I finally got up to go find her. Every single employee including the lady who seemed to be in charge were talking it up at the bar. I said excuse me, Could I please get some help? She said what do you want? I explained my steak was not right and from behind her came my waitress. She was very kind and took the steak back and brought it back to me. The steak looked like a piece of shoe leather! It didn’t cut like prime rib should and half of it was well done. I gave my husband a bite and in all our years together, I have never seen him take a bite of prime rib and spit it out of his mouth! It was not chewable/edible. Our waitress came back and she took it back again. I declined any other food. I did however order the key lime pie to go because we have eaten here many times in the past and it was good. They gave me something with a graham cracker crust and half a tub of cool whip on it. No flavor, def not key lime pie. In fairness they didn’t charge us for the steak or pie and the lady in charge brought me a new steak to go. We left and won’t be going back. We used to love this place and the food! I don’t know what happened but I will be thankful if we don’t get food poisoning! I won’t be eating that steak! One last positive the fried zucchini appetizer was good and the same as we had in the past. If you have stayed long enough to read this review, save yourself the headache and go...